Toronto – Teams of students from MBA programs, including the Rotman-SDA Bocconi Global Executive MBA, at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management achieved success in four competitions recently held.
A team of students from the Full Time MBA program at the Rotman School won the “Most Creative” category at the 2024 Systems Innovation Challenge, hosted by the Ivey School’s Innovation North, in collaboration with Walmart Canada. A second team of Rotman Full Time MBA students has advanced to the global finals of the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) by placing second in the Canadian finals, while seven students from the Rotman-SDA Bocconi Global Executive MBA program placed second in the 2024 Social Impact Partners (SIP) Brain Health Innovation Olympics.
In the Systems Innovation Challenge, the team of students, Armanda Iluliano, Camilo Gonzalez, Sandra Villasenor, Derek Leung, and Sirun Wang, all from the Rotman Full Time MBA Class of 2024, participated in the challenge which took place in two stages over the winter. In the first stage, which took place online with a final in-person event at the Ivey School, teams proposed a system-level solution to tackle the financial challenges and environmental problems associated with product returns in the retail industry. Five teams advanced to the final which culminated in presentations at Walmart Canada last month.
VCIC is the world’s largest venture capital competition, where students play the role of investors and real startups pitch to them. The team of Drishti Thakkar, Sanchaita Kohli, Arushi Parashar, Henry Forer, Isaac Tate, and Guillame de Milleville, all from the Rotman Full Time MBA Class of 2025, placed second in the Canadian finals held recently in Halifax. With this result, they advance to the global finals of the competition hosted by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School on April 12 and 13.
In the 2024 SIP Brain Health Innovation Olympics, the participants focused on defining criteria and developing ideas to build and implement Brain Health Centers of Excellence. The Rotman-Bocconi team, all from the Class of 2024, with members Shanil Bisram, Richard Legaspi, Mustapha El Sabeh, Ganesh Kaushik Gurumoorthy, Shrutya Bhalla, Minqi Zheng, and Mohsin Iqbal, proposed the creation of the Neurogenesis Lab, an accelerator that fosters a sustainable innovation ecosystem and funding mechanism. The results were announced last week.
Earlier this year, a team of Rotman students placed second at the 2024 Business School Alliance for Health Management Case Competition, which had a focus on proposing solutions to the workforce shortages challenging health systems across the globe. Team members included Shabdit Shah, ME MBA’ 24; David Guo, ME MBA’ 24; Priyanka Thakkar, ME MBA’ 25; Yifan Cao, ME MBA’26; and Sabrina Hundal, MD/MBA’25. The competition was hosted by the University of Colorado Denver in February.
The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca
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For more information:
Ken McGuffin
Manager, Media Relations
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
E-mail:mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca